Crime and sentencing,
excellent choice.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Black Americans are overrepresented in the country's incarcerated population. In 2018, Black inmates made up roughly 33% of the country's prison population — yet just 12% of the US's total population. White inmates, meanwhile, made up 30% of the prison population and 60% of the country's total population.
FBI arrest data show that Black Americans also make up the majority of suspects arrested and charged with violent crimes such as murder and robbery, which generally carry lengthy sentences. But criminal-justice reform advocates have argued that even taking crime rates into account, Blacks Americans still experience unequal treatment in the justice system compared to their white counterparts.
For instance, Black Americans are much more likely to get arrested on drug charges than white Americans, even though usage rates are comparable.
Once arrested, Black defendants are more likely than white defendants to be denied bail, and more likely to receive harsher charges and sentences than white defendants who committed the same offenses,
according to The Sentencing Project.
According to the federal government's
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, marijuana usage between Black and white Americans is similar. Just 18% of Black people over the age of 12 in 2018 reported using marijuana within the past year, while 17% of white people over the age of 12 reported the same.
But the usage rate is where the similarities end — that same year,
Black Americans were arrested 3.6 times more often than white Americans for marijuana possession, according to an American Civil Liberties Union analysis of FBI and US Census data.
Black people are overwhelmingly more likely than white people to be under parole supervision — and they're more likely to be sent back to prison for minor infractions.
New York state has a particularly extreme racial disparity when it comes to parole supervision. Black people are 6.77 times more likely to be under parole supervision than white people, the Justice Lab found. They are also 4.99 times more likely than white people to be re-incarcerated due to "technical" parole violations, meaning that they had parole revoked due to minor infractions such as missing an appointment, rather than committing a new crime.
Roughly half of those fatally shot by police are white, but Black Americans are fatally shot at a disproportionate rate compared to their representation in the US population.
